


When Skies Go Dark

by Kyrean



Category: Mage: the Awakening, World of Darkness (Games)
Genre: Gen, Kinda Songfic, Non-Graphic Rape/Non-Con, Not Beta Read, but not really
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-08
Updated: 2015-07-08
Packaged: 2018-04-08 06:49:24
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,549
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4294788
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kyrean/pseuds/Kyrean
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A normal college student at the University of Chicago. That's all Amy was. Then it happened- and in the moments where her heart didn't beat, in the gap between life and death, she found the Watchtower, her powers, and her new life.</p><p>This is the backstory for my Mage character.</p>
            </blockquote>





	When Skies Go Dark

**Author's Note:**

> Eheh... sorry about the songfic tendencies. It fit really well when I wrote this piece (half asleep), and I thought I'd leave it in. I take no credit for those lyrics. They're from "Bleed" by Evanescence.
> 
> I may write more stories of her, depending on how this is received. She has a lot of depressing and funny exploits.

March in Chicago was often bitter and cold, and that day was no exception. It was a bit more chilly than normal, and as she walked, Amy pulled her striped hoodie closer around her to ward off the biting wind. Darkness had fallen over the University of Chicago campus, and she walked between the pools of illumination provided by the streetlights as she headed back to her dorm.

A sound brought her head snapping up, and the slender, petite young woman stood at attention for a moment before the sound resolved itself under the gusts of the wind as the nearly-ubiquitous sound of an emergency vehicle’s sirens. No cause for alarm. She began walking again, smoothing down her short black hair and pulling up her hood. She put in her earbuds and cranked up her music to block out the city sounds. Her mind returned to the coding she had spent the evening trying to puzzle out, for a project she affectionately referred to as “the supercomputer”. She had almost gotten it finished, but it was only one piece out of many, and then the construction-

A hand went across her face, clamping down over her mouth so she couldn’t scream. She flailed, unsure of what was going on, but she was no fighter, and she lacked the bulk and strength to even begin to fight back. More hands were on her, dragging her off her feet and moving her, squirming and trying to scream, into the darkness outside of the pools of light. She was thrown roughly against the cold, frost-covered grass, pinned at ankles and wrists, and rough hands began tearing at her skirt.

Pure horror set in as she realized exactly what was going on, and her struggles became desperate, adrenaline-fueled. She bit down on the hand across her mouth, tasting blood, but it didn’t move. She screamed into it, despite the uselessness. She bucked and writhed, but the people on her- men, but in the darkness she couldn’t tell any more about them- were far too strong for her. Her struggles merely earned her a hard punch to the head.

The music that still blared into her ears turned into utter nonsense as her mind went foggy, her eyes unfocused, and her ears began to ring. The strength went out of her limbs as most of her awareness drained away. She was still aware of her body, vaguely, as they did unspeakable things to it. Her hearing began to come back, and the voice in her music, she noted detachedly, was in tune with her own thoughts.

_It’s only in my mind,  
Not in real life;  
No, I must be dreaming._

Finally, they finished. She could taste the salt from her tears and blood, and she gave an involuntary groan of relief.

Then the blows came. Hard kicks to her head and her abdomen, to her back and to the forearms she tried weakly to cover her face with. It took an interminable amount of time, full of pain and fear, until she could only curl onto her side and whimper, lacking the breath to scream. Her face was a mass of pain and blood, her ribs seared with pain, and there was a profound wrongness somewhere deep inside of her.

The pain was a blessing, next to the other things that had done to her. Amy couldn’t think straight anymore. There was fear that they would come back, but no- she was left alone, dying, bleeding her life out onto the ice-cold ground. The pain was all-consuming, a full-body sensation that drowned out anything else as, slowly, she began to get profoundly cold. Bit by bit, the chill against her broken body numbed the pain, drained the sensation. It was almost a mercy, and the irony was not lost on her as she began to spiral down into the blackness, the melancholy voice of her music still playing in her ears.

_We all live,  
We all die,  
That does not **begin** to justify you._

 

There was no explanation for what Amy saw, other than being dead. She had felt her life drain away. She had embraced the cold blackness, the emptiness, the naught. She could only be dead. But instead of her soul dispersing, becoming one with the emptiness of the universe, she was… here.

The sight before her put into mind Hades, the Underworld of Greek Mythology. The land was grey, with all color drained out of the surroundings. Only the carved labradorite skull that hung on a chain around her throat still had color. It burned against her breast as she took in the sight.

The sky was dark, and not even the dark of night. It was the dark of storms, of dreary days. That sky hung over a rocky wasteland, as far as the eye could see. Not that she could really see far, through the all-pervasive mist. There was an impression of shades around her, an ink-black body of water in front of her, a gate across the waters, and far, far into the distance, a dull grey tower that reared up over the mists and pierced the dark sky.

She walked, almost automatically, to the edge of the river. There, where the ink-black waters washed up onto the only patch of pebbly ground she had seen, a boat had been drawn up. A tall, skeletal man stood nearby, staring off into the distance, his sunken black eyes deep and unfathomable. As she approached, he glanced at her, and did a double-take.

“I wasn’t expecting you,” he told her, his voice gravelly, but gentle, “but I’ll take you across. Can you pay the toll?”

Half-remembered myth and legend bubbled up to the top of her mind, and suddenly, she understood. Charon, the ferryman of the river Styx. They buried the dead with a coin to pay the toll across the river.

Amy fumbled in the pocket of her hoodie for a moment, until her fingers closed around a cold metal disk. When she pulled it out, she saw that it was a small, shiny copper penny, a spot of bright color in the dreary wasteland. Offering it to the boatman, she asked, “Is this enough?”

He accepted the coin from her, and as the tips of their fingers touched, she felt in his the cold of the grave and pulled back, perturbed. He didn’t notice, but rather examined the coin. After a moment, he pocketed it. “That should be sufficient. Come with me.”

He offered her his cold hand and helped her onto the boat, then pushed it out onto the river. Pulling out a boating pole, he began to direct them to the opposite shore, across the obsidian-mirror river. As they went through the ragged shreds of mist, the image of the opposite shore resolved a bit. There, in front of the gate she had seen, was a shape, and as they got closer, she realized what it was.

Cerberus, the three-headed dog. 

They ran aground on the opposite shore, and one of Cerberus’s heads lifted and let out a sharp _wuff_. Charon helped her out of the boat and onto the shore, giving her the pale shadow of a smile. He pushed off back onto the river as she turned towards the gates.

They were wrought, but with something much duller than iron. Before them, Cerberus had come to his feet and was watching her intently with all six eyes. He did not challenge her as she approached, like she had feared, but rather came towards her and sniffed her. This massive creature, whose shoulders came up to her own, licked her trembling, outstretched hand with one head. Another nuzzled her, and the third, in the fashion of a pointer dog, directed her to the gate.

She followed his direction, passing through the gate. Here, the dark shades that lurked within the mists were more substantial. They stayed just out of reach, amorphous and ethereal. She passed between them, shying away from their reaching hands, but they did not seek to grab her, but rather to touch her as she passed, as though assuring themselves that she was real and solid.

The grey rocks began to grow larger and more jagged, forming cliffs that funneled her into a single path, crowded with shades. The tower reared into the sky before her, taller and taller as she got closer and closer. It pierced into the dark grey sky.

This close, she could see that it was made of metal, too, of a dark grey color and little lustre. After a moment of consideration, she recognized it as lead.

Something compelled her to keep walking as she drew nearer, and the compulsion, the draw on her soul, just got stronger and stronger. Then, finally, she was at the tower. The lower half appeared to be duller than the upper half. After a moment, she realized that was because things had been carved into the metal. Names. Hundreds and hundreds of names, in every language and script imaginable and some that weren’t. Amy walked around the circumference of the tower, fingers tracing the names, feeling the small indents in the metal and wondering how they were, in signature style, carved deep into lead.

There was next to no space between the names, and so she was surprised when her fingers drifted over a clear spot. She looked at the point where fingers touched metal, and saw a space just large enough for her name.

The compulsion returned, so strong this time that she couldn’t even think of resisting. With a fingernail, she began to carve her signature into the metal, which accepted it easily, as though it had been waiting for her name. As she put the last stroke on the last letter, a sudden sense of deep affirmation glowed within her soul, and she felt content.

Then a whisper came to her ears, and suddenly the world shattered into jagged shards of pain.

 

 

Something dragged her into unpleasant consciousness. The pain returned in a tide. She tried to fight it, not wanting to return to her broken body, to the shame and fear, but there was no choice, and after a moment, she was fully back in her body, aware of the pain, slowly beginning to fade.

What didn’t fade was the utter shame and violation, and once she felt she could move again, she curled around her center in a little gasp and began to shake, tears welling hot in her eyes and spilling down her face. After a moment, the tears turned into full blown, wrenching sobs that came from her very center. She couldn’t think enough to question why she was back from the dead, why the beatings seemingly hadn’t killed her.

She could only cry like the world was ending.

Then arms wrapped around her, and she gasped and stiffened, fear shooting through her stomach and making her heart skip a few beats. But slowly, she realized that the touch was kindly and gentle, and she leaned against the warm presence that held her, shuddering. Dimly, she could hear a cellphone dial, and a woman’s voice speak urgently into the receiver.

Something clicked back into place in her mind, the fragments slowly coming back together, and Amy lifted her pale face, streaked with blood, tears, and makeup. With red-rimmed eyes, she looked at the woman giving her comfort.

The face that looked down at her was somehow ageless, with tanned skin, amber eyes, and flaming red hair framing the face. There was something deeply tender in her eyes as she looked down at Amy, who shuddered again and pushed her face into her hands, struggling to control her breathing.

The woman spoke again, gentle and soothing, the same sort of voice one would use to try to calm an injured and frightened animal. “Keep breathing. You’re safe now. The police are on their way, and if the ones who hurt you come back, I can handle them.” The last few words are spoken with a growl, and Amy flinched at the anger in the woman’s voice.

“Ssshh. It’s okay. What’s your name?”

She slowly found her voice, though it was shaky and unsure. “A-amy Carrol…” She took a shuddering breath, and said, “I was dead… I was dead and in Hades. I died. I felt myself dying. Why did I come back?”

The woman touched her hair gently. “Amy, I helped you come back. You didn’t have a pulse for a while.” There was a momentary pause, and then she added, “Hades? What exactly did you see?”

It took a moment for her to assimilate the information. She had died. Her body had been dead. She finally got it together enough to say, “I saw the Greek Underworld. Charon, the River Styx, Cerberus, all of it. And a tower.”

The voice sharpened, and Amy looked up to see a sudden tension in the golden-eyed woman, though her expression was still one of motherly worry. “A tower?” she asked, voice vibrating with sudden excitement. “Did you write your name on the tower?”

Amy nodded, and with a deep breath, uncurled herself and dragged herself into a seated position. Her clothes were utterly ruined, either torn or covered in blood. She hugged her knees to her body, shivering. “How did you know..? Does that mean something?”

“It means a lot of things, Amy,” the woman said, taking off her long jacket and draping it around the young woman. “It means a new way to look at the world, power, and danger, among other things.” She leaned closer. “Now, whatever you do, don’t tell the doctors or the nurses or the cops what you saw while you were ‘dead’... they’d probably chalk it up to a near-death experience, but it never hurts to be too careful.”

Amy could hear the sirens so common to the city, getting louder. They were for her this time, she realized. The woman tried to pull away, but with sudden desperate strength, Amy grabbed at her arm. “Please don’t leave me,” she said, and her voice was weak with tears. “I don’t have anyone else to stay with me.”

“I wasn’t going to leave you, Amy. I’ll come with you to the hospital, if you want me too. I’ll stay with you however long you need me to. And after that, I have things to teach you.”

Amy sniffled, wiping at her tears with her palms and just succeeding in smearing blood all over her face. “Who are you?” she asked quietly.

“I’m… well, you’ll know me as Symmetry. In the new world that the tower prepared you for, we don’t use our real names. You’ll need to come up with a new name, too.”

The sirens were much closer now, and the flashing lights were becoming visible. Symmetry held Amy’s hands between her own. “Do you have something you want to be called?”

The paramedics were piling out of the ambulance in the corner of her vision and hustling towards them. Amy squeezed her eyes shut, then lifted her face up to the clear Chicago sky, feeling the biting breeze dry her tears. The experience she had in Hades flooded back, and with it, a name. “Nyx,” she said. “I’ll be Nyx.”


End file.
